Even after the massacre of the villager, I didn’t have time to rest.

I collected all the bodies around the village and the bodies of the escapees and stripped them bare. Using ropes I found in the village their bodies are hung from the tree branches nearby. I beheaded those bodies and let the blood drains. I don’t think I did a good job since it’s not possible for an amateur to drain blood perfectly after all. But I have to do what I can, these bodies are my precious food. I don’t want to let them go to waste. Their meat would go bad if I let blood remains in the bodies since blood rot a lot faster than meat. It was a lot of work to drain the blood from a little over 50 people. When I stopped to take a break the sun has already started rising.

I took one body with me and walked back to the cave then eat together with Ari-chan. It clearly showed more vigor than before so I probably can safely assume that the recuperation is going well. To recover such mortal wounds with just food… I have to praise a monster’s vitality. The soft tissue that covered the cracks on its shell are starting to thicken. They’ll probably harden into new shell given time.

Ari-chan is still fatigued and not yet able to move long distance so I piggy backed it and returned to the village. I think I will live in that village for a while, there’re no more human after all.

I won’t be able to live there forever probably. Even though it’s a remote village in the middle of nowhere, there’s no way they can support all of the village’s livelihood by themselves. They have to have some kind of contact with other human settlements, no matter how rare is such occasion. Either a merchant from the city comes here once in a while or a person in the village goes into town for supplies. Whichever it is one day the world will learn of this village’s tragedy. Though I don’t think it’ll happen very soon I have to be prepared to move out at any time. For now however, I have a lot of things I need to take care of in the village so hopefully no one will comes anytime soon.

Putting Ari-chan down to rest in one of the houses, I went to the nearby trees to take down the hung bodies. Next up, I start to take apart the body, separate them into smaller pieces

.

As I work my way to mutilate the bodies diligently, I grimace inside my mind.

Ewww...

This is really gross after all.

The biggest house in the village has been turned into a slaughter house and on the floor is a sloppy mess of countless limbs, organs and body parts.

Gross. Gross. Gross.

What is this, this is like the scene from a low budget horror movie that should never be seen by healthy people. Even after I’ve turned into a monster, what’s unpleasant is unpleasant.

(calm down, these are just gummy bears, that’s right, they’re just gummy bears)

I mumble in my mind while continue on with my work.

Urg… Gross.

Still, this is truly some heavy labor. If I were a human there’s no way I could process the meat by myself. Thankfully my monster body possesses great power and endurance. Not to mention I have finally recovered my strength completely because of the mountain of all-you-can-eat food. I feel like a new person. If it’s the me currently then even if I were to be put in the same situation as last night I wouldn’t receive any wounds.

I found a big meat smoker in the village which can be said to be a stroke of luck. It was as big as a wardrobe and made of iron, on the lowest level was a place to put in charcoal, there are many iron sheets for grilling on the upper levels and finally a chimney on top. Probably it was used to preserve meat they got from hunting. Without it I would truly have no idea how to preserve the bodies. I honestly don’t want to attack new human settlements any time soon. Or risking myself against monsters.

50 bodies are really too many for the smoker to keep up with even if it’s huge so I tried my best to pull out the bone and skins, only leaving the meat in the smoker. The hearts and livers I will try to eat them all tonight with Ari-chan. As for the intestines and other organs I’ll have to discard them sadly, I don’t even know how to make sausages. I have the feeling that even if I’m full I can still digest more and store them as reserve energy in my body. There are many cases of insects that survive for a long time without food, such as the cockroaches that can survive for one week without water and one month without food. Though I’m probably not that efficient.

After I rubbed salts onto the meat, I left them in the smoker. While waiting for the meat to finish smoking, I walk around the village to find out if there’re anything that’s useful.

There weren’t too many interesting finds.

A couple of pots with some strange spice made from some kind of dried fruits, or maybe vegetable. I can’t identify what they are, they might even be some sort of local medicine, and they tasted horrible. Some pepper pots… these are useful. The salt has already been used up on the smoked meat. A poor village like this probably doesn’t have the ability to afford a good amount of spices. Though I don’t know the level of civilization here, spices may be an expensive thing considering they’re transporting by horse carriage.

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I tried to look for books or any sort of literature too, maybe I could learn something about the language but there were nothing. I wonder how far does paper technology in this world goes, or was it even invented at all?

There weren’t many clothes, each person seems to only possess a few sets and they all look pretty much the same. I collected a couple of man’s tunic of suitable size and put one on. These simple clothes are pretty much a baggy shirt that’s tied up with a string at the waist. After all it’s not as if I’ve lost my sense of shame after becoming a monster. I just didn’t have the luxury of worrying about it till now.

The men didn’t seem to have any underwear so I took some pumpkin pants from the women as my underwear. There are no bras… well that can’t be helped. The body of a woman is so troublesome, can I please get back my old body already? I didn’t wear a skirt or trousers, since the lower part of the tunic also acts as a skirt. Long trousers or skirt is only good at collecting dirt and be obstructive when I move around in the forest.

In one house I found a pot with rather interesting things inside it. Stuffed inside are numerous articles about the size of a finger, all are in a golden brown color.

This… could it be grilled grasshoppers?

Well well… what a rare find.

I’ve always wanted to try these at least once when I saw them on television. They’re quite an exotic delicacy in Mexico and Uganda. Maybe a normal person would be repulsed by the thought but I’ve always found insects interesting. I owned a lot of books about insect too, they were a fun read. Wouldn’t it be interesting to try eating them at least once?

I then put the grasshopper into my mouth.

Crunchy!

The taste is quite rich too, this is similar to deep fried baby crabs?

This is quite amazing as a snack. To think that a treasure was found in this backwater village! 

I continue to check around the village as I snack on the grasshoppers happily. I want to save it but it’s so hard to stop, this is like that feeling when you have to reach out for the next piece of potato chip. Ari-chan won’t get mad if I eat all of them, right?

There are some plants that are being grown on the ground right next to some houses. These are tomato and eggplants right? They all aren’t yet ripe though. The fields too are in the middle of growing, so there’s nothing I can do about them. There are some rice pots left in the village so maybe I can try to cook them later.

I found some money too, 60 silver coins and 230 copper coins in total. I have no idea whether this is a lot or little. Regardless I don’t have any chance of using money in the first place, since I’m a monster.

Once the smoked meats are done, I warp them in cloths and leather sheets I found then tie them up tight with ropes. This amount should be enough to last us 1 month, or maybe 2 if we ration our meal. A lot of the meat were burned but it’s within expectations, smoking food too need some experience and skill. In this situation I can’t be too picky about food anyway, I’m satisfied just having something to put in my stomach.

… I won’t get cancer from eating this right?

What should I do for my next step? For the time being I will stay in this village but I will move out sooner or later. Where should I go then? Human settlements are no good, what about demi human? From my experience with the elf bastard from before though, I doubt there’d be much difference.

Since I’m a monster now, how about making some monster friend? But it’s doubtful whether there are any intelligence monster or not . Ant-chan is at best just a pet, I won’t be able to learn anything about this world from it.

That’s right, I needed to know more about this world don’t I?

I would like to secure a good life, and find some way to get back my male body after all.

So the most important thing for me is information.

In order to collect information, I need to learn the language somehow.

It seems that it’s one impossible obstacle after another…haaahhh…

.

Well, I’ll try to learn the language later, maybe I can infiltrate a town and search for relevant books.

For now, I’ll use the weapons in this village and try to get used to hunting monster.

I can’t always hunt humans, those guys are like a hornet nest. If I stir them up unskillfully I’ll get bitten to death.

There’ll be a lot of hardships in the future so it’s a good idea to get used to fighting as well.